Please note: we have been online over ten years, and we want The Trek BBS to continue as a free site. But if you block our ads we are at risk.Please consider unblocking ads for this site - every ad you view counts and helps us pay for the bandwidth that you are using. Thank you for your understanding.

Welcome! The Trek BBS is the number one place to chat about Star Trek with like-minded fans. Please login to see our full range of forums as well as the ability to send and receive private messages, track your favourite topics and of course join in the discussions.

If you are a new visitor, join us for free. If you are an existing member please login below. Note: for members who joined under our old messageboard system, please login with your display name not your login name.

I honestly have to say as badly as they explored B'Elanna being half Klingon in Voyager, they may as well not have made her her Klingon at all. She could have been a human with a bad temper for all the good it did her and her story. Not much would have been changed by it. The two truly Klingon stories we got would have gone already, which always felt really forced and the story about B'Elanna having problems growing up could have been changed to her being a fat kid of something.

I'm not saying it wouldn't have been more interesting diversifying Voyager's crew a bit more then it was, but what I am saying is there was no advantage to having B'Elanna be a half Klingon and even if they would have written more on that angel, I don't think Dawson could have played off it better.

Comparisons between Worf and B'elanna are difficult. It's not a simple matter of their interests. B'elanna was raised by a Klingon parent: her awareness of the culture should be more organic to her being. Worf was adopted by humans: in a sense he was a bookish Klingon. Indeed his sense of honor was more ideal than other Klingons. As for their tempers: Klingons displayed varying degrees of emotional control depending on their goals. Martok was far less impulsive than Gowron, less so that B'elanna, and perhaps less so than Worf.

Worf was raised by humans who did everything they could to provide him with as close to a klingon lifestyl as they could. His mother said she learned to cook blood pie. B'elanna was raised by a klingon but resented and rejected klingon ways, she was teased for it and blamed it for her father leaving. so she didn't embrace the klingon stuff from her mother

First, the fact that Worf has been an idealized and romanticized Klingon, a product of book-learning rather than a real childhood experiences, was a subject of discussion at least as early as Rightful Heir and at least as late as Tacking Into The Wind. Whether or not his Klingonness is unnatural, many characters, including his brother, saw him as something other than the real thing. Sometimes, they played with that idea in order to incite a reaction from him.

Second, you should pay attention to the use of the conditional. I never argue that B'Elanna did not reject Klingon values, but because of the the context she was raised, she should have a more organic sense of what they stand for. "Should" is a key word.

since we don't know exactly how she was raised, you're just assuming.

what we do know is that from a young age she was teased for being klingon and blames herself for her father leaving because she was too klingon for him.

I honestly have to say as badly as they explored B'Elanna being half Klingon in Voyager, they may as well not have made her her Klingon at all. She could have been a human with a bad temper for all the good it did her and her story. Not much would have been changed by it. The two truly Klingon stories we got would have gone already, which always felt really forced and the story about B'Elanna having problems growing up could have been changed to her being a fat kid of something.

I'm not saying it wouldn't have been more interesting diversifying Voyager's crew a bit more then it was, but what I am saying is there was no advantage to having B'Elanna be a half Klingon and even if they would have written more on that angel, I don't think Dawson could have played off it better.

i think they explored it fine. she hated that part of heself and tried to ignore it, having a lot of episodes about her klingon-ness wouldn't have made sense

Worf was raised by humans who did everything they could to provide him with as close to a klingon lifestyl as they could. His mother said she learned to cook blood pie. B'elanna was raised by a klingon but resented and rejected klingon ways, she was teased for it and blamed it for her father leaving. so she didn't embrace the klingon stuff from her mother

First, the fact that Worf has been an idealized and romanticized Klingon, a product of book-learning rather than a real childhood experiences, was a subject of discussion at least as early as Rightful Heir and at least as late as Tacking Into The Wind. Whether or not his Klingonness is unnatural, many characters, including his brother, saw him as something other than the real thing. Sometimes, they played with that idea in order to incite a reaction from him.

Second, you should pay attention to the use of the conditional. I never argue that B'Elanna did not reject Klingon values, but because of the the context she was raised, she should have a more organic sense of what they stand for. "Should" is a key word.

since we don't know exactly how she was raised, you're just assuming.

what we do know is that from a young age she was teased for being klingon and blames herself for her father leaving because she was too klingon for him.

After Barge of the Dead, we know a lot. She was in a Klingon monastery. She believed the mythology as a child. And if her experiences are based on her imagination (and not real), she has deep knowledge that allows her to construct an elaborate image of the afterlife. Worf nearly burned down his quarters trying to summon an image of Kahless; he worked much harder to achieve much less.

ETA: on the question of whether or not I am making assumptions: no, I am not inventing details in the lacunae of her biography. I am extrapolating from her experiences (as well as real people who undergo cultural assimilation) in order to discuss was is reasonable to expect from such a character.

First, the fact that Worf has been an idealized and romanticized Klingon, a product of book-learning rather than a real childhood experiences, was a subject of discussion at least as early as Rightful Heir and at least as late as Tacking Into The Wind. Whether or not his Klingonness is unnatural, many characters, including his brother, saw him as something other than the real thing. Sometimes, they played with that idea in order to incite a reaction from him.

Second, you should pay attention to the use of the conditional. I never argue that B'Elanna did not reject Klingon values, but because of the the context she was raised, she should have a more organic sense of what they stand for. "Should" is a key word.

since we don't know exactly how she was raised, you're just assuming.

what we do know is that from a young age she was teased for being klingon and blames herself for her father leaving because she was too klingon for him.

After Barge of the Dead, we know a lot. She was in a Klingon monastery. She believed the mythology as a child. And if her experiences are based on her imagination (and not real), she has deep knowledge that allows her to construct an elaborate image of the afterlife. Worf nearly burned down his quarters trying to summon an image of Kahless; he worked much harder to achieve much less.

yeah, and I think I said that before, she knew the mythology and the stories about the first klingons and such

I dunno, the episodes where Torres explores her heritage just seemed dull to me. It had really all been done by Worf at that point. It's funny how Torres always blames her Klingon half for her temper... yet most Klingons really never had her rage issues.

I do think her outfit could've done without the metal bra thing on the outside.

You know you're right. Of the Klingons we've seen through the ages.

AllStarEntprise wrote:

Klang

Antaak
Antaak Ridgless

TOS

Kor

Koloth

Korax

Kras

Krell

Kang

Kruge

Chang

Azetbur

TNG-DS9-VOY

Worf and the Klingons behind him

K'Ehleyr: Half Human

B'Elanna: Half Human

B'Etor and Lursa

Abrams Star Trek

None of these (except B'Elanna) had anything resembling anger management issues. You look at episodes like "Heart of Glory", "Redemption", "Once More Into The Breach" which feature numerous Klingons interacting with one another and they all get along as well as humans do. B'Elanna by comparison comes off as having a chip on her shoulder and uses her mixed heritage to scapegoat her behavior.

I honestly have to say as badly as they explored B'Elanna being half Klingon in Voyager, they may as well not have made her her Klingon at all. She could have been a human with a bad temper for all the good it did her and her story. Not much would have been changed by it. The two truly Klingon stories we got would have gone already, which always felt really forced and the story about B'Elanna having problems growing up could have been changed to her being a fat kid of something.

I'm not saying it wouldn't have been more interesting diversifying Voyager's crew a bit more then it was, but what I am saying is there was no advantage to having B'Elanna be a half Klingon and even if they would have written more on that angel, I don't think Dawson could have played off it better.

i think they explored it fine. she hated that part of heself and tried to ignore it, having a lot of episodes about her klingon-ness wouldn't have made sense

That's really side stepping my point.

My point was the fans LOVE Klingon stories and by pulling the "I hate myself because I'm Klingon" they alienated her from those stories right out of the get go and destroyed the potential for her having those stories.

They could have had those self loathing / emo stories without her being Klingon.